Lockjaw

The Bay Area's Dance Hall Crashers were originally founded as a ska band and side project by Rancid members Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman, but the group evolved through several permutations into a pop-punk band with no Rancid members. The Dance Hall Crashers' major-label debut, Lockjaw, is full of staccato guitar riffing and impatient complaints about authority, but it's all set to irresistibly catchy melodic hooks. As with Green Day, the contradiction between the unhappy lyrics and the deliriously happy music comes across as a remarkably healthy response to an unhealthy social environment. Here, that response is given a fresh twist by the chirpy, twin lead vocals by Elyse Rogers and Karina Denike and by the remaining traces of Caribbean rhythms. --Geoffrey Himes